ELEKTRO Speaks With: Autograph and Francesca Lombardo at Lightning in a Bottle

As the electronic music scene grows, taste and preferences are just as quickly broadening. With this expansion, experimentation in sound is becoming more popular--and as a result, newly forged cross-combinations of genres are emerging. To highlight this phenomenon we sat down with two leading artists who have created a sound completely their own, and to high-acclaim undeniably so.

Juliana Bernstein

First up, we chatted with the beautiful DJ and songstress, Francesca Lombardo, fresh from performing at the International Music Summit, in Ibiza. Inspired by old-school legends Kraftwerk and other early-age electronica artists, Francesca conveys her classically trained music production background and organic underground craftsmanship to her live performance and DJ sets. When asked about her sound and her inspirations she recalled, “I want to take people on a journey.” She continued, and described her sound as all her own, fully-encompassing her classical background and love for the underground sounds.

Francesca is a momentous luminary for other genre-defying females in the predominantly male electronic movement. Her warmness, humility and incredible artistry are fully expressive in each performance, which, was nothing short of sublime at LIB’s Woogie stage, Saturday night.

The lovely techno-goddess was so excited to play for an energetic crowd at LIB; when recalling her flight above the festival grounds she said, “the location is literally stunning… the pilot was explaining to me about the bridges (in the festival) how you can get from one end to the other… It looked so beautiful from the top.”

Andrew Jorgenson - Courtesy of The Confluence

A crowd can definitely influence a performers sound. Francesca raved about the crowd saying, “I wish I could have played for longer, I could have played for 3 or 4 hours!” She compared her sunset performance at LIB to her sunrise set at Burning Man, last year.

“Every time, in that moment, when the sun is coming up, it is always very emotional.”

When comparing Burning Man to Lightning in a Bottle, Francesca said, “The people I’ve seen here are the people who go to Burning Man. So, it has the same spirit, ya know? I’ve seen a lot of friendly faces and I’ve seen that this (LIB) is a little less serious, (than Burning Man)… It’s more simple, but in a good way… Here, it is more intimate.”

Juliana Bernstein

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Next up, we chatted with the boys from Autograf, a three-piece live-electronica performance group from Chicago. The trio just got back from a massive tour in Asia where they hit up a string of up-in-coming dance music cities such as Bangkok, Seoul, and Hong Kong. Fresh off their metaphysical single tour the trio launched their EP, Future Soup, which has been a colossal hit with their dedicated young n’ hip millennial following.

Their live performance at the Thunder Stage, on the second day of Lightning in a Bottle was a whirlwind of melodic sounds and up-tempo dance beats. Their live sets are a composite of each member’s unique individualistic sound – which combines future house vibes, break-beat backgrounds, melodic build-ups and all around majestic sounds. The boys refuse to define their sound as one genre in saying:

“Music shouldn’t be defined by words. It should be listened to.”

Juliana Bernstein

Living and working in Chicago, the Autograf trio felt inspired by the Chicago house movement and artists in the latter days of the house music movement such as Felix da Housecat and Tiga.